I feel like I am beginning to repeat myself a little, because each ad campaign I have done this year feels like one of those dream jobs. This one for Washington Healthplanfinder was no exception. With Obamacare rolling out I got to work with the folks at GMMB on this hilarious ad campaign. If these images don’t convince you to get yourself some health insurance, I don’t know what will.

The first shoot (the seagull attack) took place on our own private ferry at 4:30am on a beautiful Sunday. It was maybe one of the coolest things I have done on a shoot. Drifting around in the Puget Sound at sunrise. Beautiful!

The next shoot was a 4:00am call time, which feels so early to me! Not a morning person, but the show must go on. The skateboard crash was the hardest and most technical of all the shots. Although my assistants might disagree since I have no idea how they managed a 12×12 and two 7 ft. softboxes on a windy ferry.

The roofing accident shot was at the end of a very long 12 hour day, but it was so fun. The talent with the nail gun, Gabriel, had us all dying with his dialog. I like to give people scenarios to work with when shooting this type of work. I find it helps me work through the situation, and also helps the talent get into character and make the image more believable. There are a lot of little details to think about on a shot like the roofing accident. What are these guys doing? What is happening on and off camera that I want the viewer to think about? Are the interactions of the two guys on the roof believable? And so on.

So for this shot, I explained to Gabriel:

You are putting a new roof on your home before the winter hits, and your good friend is helping you because he owes you a big favor (You traded him Russell Wilson for Trent Richardson in your fantasy football league.). You are almost done with one side of the roof, when your neighbor walks by and see’s you up there. He gives you a puzzled look because he knows you are not the handiest guy on the block. Hey, what the heck are you doing up there!? he yells. Gabriel looks back at his neighbor with a big smile, and says… And this is where Gabriel took over with his improv. “Oh, we roofin’ man! Yeah, we roofin’!” “What’s it look like we doin’ up her man, we roofin’!” You might think over an hour of this might get old, but somehow it didn’t. We just laughed, took pictures and, yeah, we roofin’.

Here are some of my favorite behind the scenes images from this shoot. Big thanks to my new rep Redeye, Kontent Partners (who are super amazing people, and amazing at what they do), GMMB, Gigantic Squid, Cara Aeschliman, Gregg White, and so many more. I am blessed to work with such fun people.